Runt Of The Litter Has Become King Of Deer-hunting Hounds

November 12, 1989|By JAY MUNDY Staff Writer

ISLE OF WIGHT — The pup was the runt of the litter. Even if it survived in a kennel of tough hunting hounds, the chance it would ever be more than just another anonymous voice in a pack of yapping deerhounds was slim.

"Little Speck is one in a thousand," said Thacker, 34, a shipfitter at Newport News Shipbuilding. "He's everything I look for in a deerhound and more."

What turned this ordinary pup into an excellent deer hunter isn't so much the tale of a puppy's struggle to become one of the better dogs in the pack, as it is the story of a small dish of the milk of human kindness.

Eastern Virginia farmlands are pot-marked with dense woods and cypress swamps. A majority of these lands are owned by timber companies. It is rugged land of briar thickets, hidden potholes, ruts and deadfalls.

These cutovers are so wild that few hunters risk walking through them, thus the need for hounds that have the heart to dashed head-long into the thick of them and flush out the deer.

Moonlight Hunt Club has 56 members who control about 10,000 acres of land, 6,000 leased from timber companies. Last year, the club bagged 179 deer from a herd estimated at more than 1,500.

"So we're constantly on the lookout for deerhounds," said hunt master Robert Cox, "because some are always killed, lost, or stolen.

"When we get good dogs, we take very good care of them. When we get exceptional dogs like Allen's Little Speck, who will stay on the trail long after the pack has given up, we consider ourselves real lucky."

When he was a boy dogging his father's footsteps at the hunt club, Allen Thacker had already made up his mind that someday he would own a pack of deerhounds. He also knew how he would train them.

"I talk to my dogs constantly," Allen Thacker said. "I know the voice of each one. I know what it's going to do the minute I open the dog box and it jumps from the truck.

"I can even yell their name while they're chasing a deer and they will stop and come to me.

"Some hunters might laugh at me for being so easy on my dogs, but I believe a pat on the head and a kind word will accomplish more than a big stick."

According to A.P. Thacker, his son has always had a special way with hounds.

"I think Allen would rather listen to his hounds chase the deer than he had kill it." he said. "I don't think he even killed a deer last year."

Other members of the hunt club apparently think Thacker's handling of the hounds is unusual, because he is the assistant hunt master this season.

"You've got to have dogs that are even tempered and get along with other dogs," said Cox. "And we've got that."

Cox said that when it's time to take the hounds from the kennel, Thacker's dogs were always eager to go.

"They go in the box quietly and stay quiet until you get where you're going to hunt and turn them loose," he said.

"When it's time to hunt, they hunt. No yapping. No fighting. No foolishness. That Speck of his has a real distinctive voice and is a great jump dog. It'll get on a cold trail and stick with it until it gets the deer up and in the swamps and cutovers, that's not an easy chore."

"Little Speck was the only one in the litter to survive," Thacker said about the puppies shired by a dog he picked up at an auction in Ivor.

"Speck, his daddy, was just the opposite. He ran alone, he trailed alone and no one could catch him but me.

"Little Speck is small for a Walker hound, but I like small dogs when hunting these timber company cutovers.

"Bigger dogs get scratched and cut up. Smaller dogs seem to move throught the rough stuff so much easier."

Thacker has started on another generation of deerhounds for his club. He has four 6 1/2-week-old pups he is hoping will be as good as Little Speck.

"Right now the pups lay around the kennel with momma," he said. "By the end of the hunting season, I plan to let them get in the woods with momma.